


Fulcrum: A Star Wars Story

by theschredder



Series: From an Unauthorized Point of View [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Ahsoka - E. K. Johnston, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theschredder/pseuds/theschredder
Summary: Ahsoka Tano, former jedi padawan and future rebel hero, was instrumental in taking rag-tag groups with anti-Imperial sentiment into a well organized and coordinated Rebel Alliance.  This is the story of that transformation and her own.
Series: From an Unauthorized Point of View [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686760
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Of All the Dive Bars in All the Galaxy

Ahsoka Tano, former padawan of the Jedi Order and current head of Fulcrum, ordered another drink. She was in yet another dive bar in yet another space station somewhere in the Thanium sector near Felucia. She couldn’t remember the name of the bar from when she’d walked in a few hours ago, but she could describe in detail each of its denizens despite hiding her own face and headtails under her cowl. The bartender, a Rodian brought her another of the blue fizzy drinks that were bar’s specialty and Ahsoka winced as she inhaled the vapors coming off the glass. Luckily, the taste was better than the smell and she savored the sweet flavor as she took a sip of what must have been her seventh or eighth drink since she’d entered the bar. 

She took a moment to steady herself in the force and allow it to focus her mind despite the strength of the drinks. She reached out with the force and felt, once again, the presence of each being in the bar. There was a Devaronian off in one corner who was drinking and seemed to be watching the room, but wasn’t focused on anyone in particular. Two other Rodians sat at a table near the center of the room playing a card game in good spirits, talking about how successful the job they’d just done had been. A group of Weequay stood, leaning heavily on each other, competing with each other for who could drink the most. And a Twi’lek who looked like her best days were behind her was singing and swaying off to the side of the bar on the packing crate that passed for a stage. 

  
It was the middle of the day, local time, and most who had jobs on the station would be working, but Ahsoka was waiting for a contact to show. He was late and she was starting to think he may not be coming. That, in itself, wasn’t necessarily a reason to worry as there were all sorts of reasons in her business that someone may not make a meet, but she had really hoped this lead may, well, lead to something. A connection in this sector would allow her organization to expand its operations into this area of the Outer Rim and would hopefully allow her to keep an eye on Imperial forces coming and going in the region.

  
Another male Rodian walked into the bar. He was wearing the brown animal-skin coat she’d been told to expect. His left stalk had a scar on it which is how sentients that weren’t a member of his species could tell him apart from others of his species and his skin was an aqua-colored blue green. Ahsoka took in all this with a glance as she moved her head, seemingly just to take another sip of the sweet blue drink she still held in her hand. But she waited. It didn’t seem like any of the bar’s patrons were watching for anything and none of them seemed like the type to work for Imperial intelligence, but you could never tell who they were using as informants. On top of that, she sensed something was off. 

  
In addition to a physical description, she’d been told to expect the Rodian she met to be tidy with his appearance and deliberate in his speech and actions. He was supposed to be very careful, which is why she and Bail Organa had been interested in him and his organization in the first place. There were plenty of beings out there willing to oppose the Empire, but not many who could do it discreetly enough to avoid their detection. The being four stools away from her at the bar, though, seemed like he’d already had a few drinks before coming in. He had kind of stumbled to the bar and even though she couldn’t speak Rodian, Ahsoka could tell that he’d slurred his drink order. The Rodian got his drink and then turned around so quickly that he knocked over the bar stool next to him. Ahsoka withdrew into the force, drawing it around her to avoid the notice of anyone who wasn’t directly interested in her, hoping the Rodian wouldn’t notice and approach her.

  
The Rodian bent down to pick up the bar stool, almost fell over while lifting it back into place, and then flopped down at the nearest empty table. A couple tables away, the other two Rodians looked up from their game threw a friendly greeting his way, but he didn’t acknowledge them, seeming not to even notice that they’d spoken to him.

  
On her belt, Ahsoka’s com-link buzzed. She grabbed it and looked at it. It was Bail. She couldn’t pick up here, so he’d have to leave a message. She wondered why he’d be calling her again so soon. It might be that he’d discovered an problem with this contact, as she was starting to suspect, but it was too late now for anything he’d be able to tell her regarding that. She looked up again and noticed the Rodian had slumped in his seat. He was lying in his chair with his head hanging back in a way that looked to uncomfortable for sleep. Ahsoka reached out with the force to see if he was faking unconsciousness and found instead, nothing. She could no longer sense the Rodian in the force at all, which could mean only one thing: he was dead. 

  
She took another sip of her drink, eyes scanning the room to see if anyone else had noticed yet. The patrons all seemed too focused on themselves to notice that the Rodian wasn’t breathing. She signaled to the bartender that she was ready to pay her tab and dropped some credits on the counter. She knew it would look suspicious if the Rodian was found dead right after she left, but she couldn’t afford to be detained and questioned here. She wasn’t sure how her ID would hold up under the scrutiny of a murder investigation if that’s what had happened. She downed the rest of her drink and headed out of the bar and toward her ship.


	2. Chapter 2

A few minutes of slow drunken stumbling later, she was inside her ship and dropped the act. She sat down and pulled out her comlink, brining up the message that had been left for her. The face of Raymus Antilles, the captain of Bail Organa’s ship, the Tantive IV popped into view. “Fulcrum, our mutual friend wanted to deliver this news himself, but he is busy with other business and didn’t want it to wait.” She wondered if Bail was just being extra cautious by using his captain to send the message or if we was really too involved in senatorial business to send the message himself. “I hope your mission has been a success, but we received intel from a contact in the Imperial military that there have been signs of discontent on a small planet in the Gordian Reach called B’trilla. It doesn’t seem like the Empire is reacting to the news for now besides some extra activity at their base on the planet, but it could just be a matter of time before the information filters through the bureaucracy and the Empire sends someone to investigate. Based on what we know of the native species, they may be an ideal group to join our cause if the intel is accurate. But be careful. And bring backup if you can.” The message ended with the telltale Fulcrum symbol, derived from the markings on her own forehead.

  
“Guess I’m headed to B’trilla,” she announced to her empty ship. “I probably couldn’t have stayed here any longer anyway.” She headed to the cockpit to release the docking clamps as she ran through aloud who she may be able to call on for backup. “Chardri Tage is off scouting another lead. Colo Rimen’s undercover and this isn’t worth pulling him out for. Fardi might help me with getting weaponry to the planet if it turns out these B’trillans know what they’re doing, but this is way too early to contact him. I don’t want to give him too much time to find an excuse to back out. Guess the only other option is Rex. R6,” she said to her astromech, “start taking us out of the system and see if you can get in contact with Rex.”

  
She waited a few minutes and watched out the window as R6 took her small freighter away from the space station. Then holo chimed and her Fulcrum symbol appeared. “Commander?” Captain Rex, CT-7567, sounded a little distracted, but was alert as always.

  
“You don’t have to call me that anymore, Rex. I’m not a commander and you’re not a solider anymore.”

  
“I’ll always be a soldier, Commander. Even if I don’t have an army to fight in.”

  
“About that,” she started. “I could use some help with a mission. I’m going to be going into an Empire occupied world and I could use some backup in case things go south.” She wished she could see his face. It had been over a year since she’d seen him in person and she missed how steady he always was in every circumstance. He’d gone from encouraging her to lead her men at the beginning of the Clone Wars to having her back against other clone troopers at the battle of Mandalore.

  
“Sorry, Commander,” he said and her heart sank. “I have a mission of my own at the moment. One of my brothers contacted me in need of extraction. We’re going to try to pull some others out as well.” She knew how important it was to him to get his fellow clone troopers out of the Empire’s clutches, but she couldn’t help feeling a little betrayed. She knew she couldn’t show it though. He must have felt so guilty after fighting against men who were his brothers to save her. Men who he’d served side-by-side with for years. And now he had an opportunity to save some of them. She couldn’t fault him for that, could she? Still, that didn’t make it any easier.

  
“That’s okay, Rex. Your brothers come first. Get them out of danger and let me know if you need any help.”

  
“You got it, Commander.” His voice softened. “And Commander? If you hear of any other clones that need extraction, let me know, okay? They’ve already been through their war. They don’t need to be forced into another.”

  
She knew what he meant what she was doing now. He wanted to make sure that any clones that either of them freed would have a choice of whether or not to keep fighting, for anyone’s side. But she knew that any rebellion against the Empire would need soldiers and the clones were the most experienced soldiers in the galaxy. “I’ll try Rex. But this war is going to come for us whether we want it to or not.”

  
“And I hope when it does, you win it Commander,” he said, signing off. You. Not we. They’d fought side-by-side for all those years. She’d be dead several times over if it wasn’t for Rex. But now he had his own goals and plans and she may not be able to rely on him to help her in this fight she’d taken on. It made her feel alone, vulnerable. But she had a job to do.

  
She sighed. “Plot a course to B’trilla, R6.” As they jumped to hyperspace, the stars lengthened into lines which turned into a bright white all around the ship. She needed more allies for this fight. She was trying to build an organization that could resist a galaxy-wide empire and she had too few beings she could rely on. Some that she had might only be on her side because she was paying them. Well, Bail Organa was paying them. She didn’t have two credits to rub together, it was only the money Bail laundered from Alderaan through other businesses that kept their operation afloat. And now it at least had dedicated leadership, but sometimes she couldn’t believe she’d volunteered herself to oversee and inter-system intelligence network. The jedi had taught her to do many things and a year on her own had taught her even more, but she wasn’t qualified to coordinate an massive intelligence network. But there wasn’t anyone else to do it and it needed more time than Bail could dedicate.

  
R6 chirped to let her know they’d be dropping out of hyperspace in 30 seconds. The course he’d plotted would take them pretty close to the planet to get them there quickly. She’d seen in the data packet that accompanied Raymus’s message that the Imperial outpost on B’trilla was relatively small, so she knew she’d probably get questioned, but she didn’t have anything on the ship that would raise any flags and they wouldn’t have time to closely investigate every ship that came into the system. Landing shouldn’t be a problem.

  
That thought left her head immediately when the ship dropped out of hyperspace with a TIE fighter right in front of her.


	3. Radio Chatter

R6 let out a long shrill whistle as the ship lurched to the left, narrowly avoiding a collision with the small Imperial fighter. Alarms started going off all over her control board the ships com station chimed with contacts from at least three different sources. Her sensors chimed contact with other ships and she watched as three other fighters she could barely see her viewport streaked through the darkness of space right toward her. Two of the fighters fired their turbolasers at her ship, though they were too far away to have much effect. The fighter she’d barely missed must have come around behind her though because a missile lock alarm started blaring louder than any of the others. She doubted the ship could take a direct hit from a missile. This ship was a freighter, so it was at least designed with shields, unlike the TIE fighters, but its shields were meant to handle space debris and wouldn’t take more than a few turbolaser shots before failing. The freighter’s maneuverability was also incredibly lacking when compared with the light agile fighters she was facing off against. If she’d been willing to reveal her hidden weapons package, she probably could have fought her way free and jumped back to hyperspace, but she hoped that wouldn’t be necessary because then her mission would be a failure before it’d begun.

  
R6 banked the ship right to avoid the turbolaser shots and Ahsoka prayed the pilot in the fighter behind her would wait for confirmation before firing its missile. She scrolled through the signatures on her com board and picked the one that would be most likely to deal with her most immediate problem. The connection was made and she heard an angry male voice that was probably human on the other end. “What the hell was that? You attacking one of my pilots!? Identify yourself!”

  
She purposely made her voice a higher pitch than normal to sound younger than she was and put on an air of innocence. “What? I’m so sorry!” She gasped, trying to sound shaken up, which wasn’t hard because she really was. “I… was just…” she broke off breathing heavily.

  
“Identify yourself,” the voice still sounded stern, but some of the anger in it had faded.

  
“I… I’m Ashla. I’m here for work, but I didn’t expect to run in to TIE fighters.” She left some of her breathlessness fade from her voice and let some awe into her words. “I’ve never seen one up close before. That was scary.”

  
“Yes, yes,” the voice said, now sounding merely annoyed. “Well, you should be more careful in the future, young lady. You could have died. My men were about to shoot down your little ship.”

  
Ahsoka almost smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had called her “young lady.” If anyone ever had. To the jedi, she’d always been “youngling” or “padawan” and to the clones she’d been “commander.” It seemed like a slice of normalcy to be condescended to by a soldier who could have been under her command a few years before.

  
“Thank you, I will be. I definitely don’t want to get shot down before reaching B’trilla. Ummm… do you know how I can get landing clearance?” The surest way to get a lecture to stop was to ask the lecturer to do you a favor. And sure enough, the response she expected came quickly.

  
The officer scoffed. “Girl, I have better things to do than pass messages on to ground control for you. They’ll contact you on the normal channels and you just follow their instructions. If you don’t, we’ll meet again soon and it probably won’t end as well for you.”

  
She ignored the not so veiled threat. “Okay,” she said cheerily as if he’d actually told her something useful. “Thanks for the help!”

  
Ahsoka angled her freighter toward the planet and answered the only com that was still pinging on her screen.

  
“Unknown freighter, this is B’trilla ground control. Identify yourself and state your purpose.”

  
“Ground control, this is the Felucian Pelican, requesting permission to land. I’m here for work and seeking a cargo.”

  
A minute passed and she worried that she wouldn’t be allowed to land or, even worse, that her fraudulent ship ID would give her away if scrutinized too closely. “Did you file a request for landing in advance of your travel?”

  
She skimmed the data packet she’d received about the planet and found no such request as being required by either the local or Imperial authorities. Which meant either this was a new procedure or someone was trying to shake her down. “I did not, ground control. I’m trained as a mechanic and I know the harvest is coming up on B’trilla, so I’m hoping to trade my services for an agricultural cargo.

  
Another pause. She needn’t have worried. “Felucian Pelican, you’re clear to land. Proceed to hanger 7D.”

  
An hour later, after descending through a thick fog that seemed to cover the whole planet, she landed at the biggest spaceport of the small, heavily populated world. “R6, stay here and watch the ship,” she called back to the little droid as she disembarked. “I’ll radio if I need anything.” The little droid chirped an affirmative and she walked out into the sunlight of a beautiful day. She’d been to many planets in her short life with anywhere from zero to four visible suns and skies of all colors, but here, she couldn’t even see the sky, it was so foggy. She’d experienced something like this on planets like Coruscant and Geonosis where haze or smog obscured the sky, but at least here it smelled more natural.

She’d made it no father than the door of the hanger when a crisp voice, almost as crisp as the uniform that held it, rang out. “Miss? I need to ask you a few questions.” She looked over and saw two stormtroopers flanking and Imperial officer, walking toward her. Was this a trap? Had they seen through her ship ID and let her land in order to take her into custody? She knew she could take the stormtroopers, but if she did, there was no guarantee she could escape the planet in the Pelican. She’d have to take her chances. 

“Sure, what can I do for you, officer?”

“Please come with me,” he said, turning toward a squat building on the border between the public spaceport and the Imperial garrison. He led the way and Ahsoka followed.


	4. Interrogations

A few minutes later, Ahsoka was in what was unmistakably an interrogation room and was starting to wonder about the wisdom of her plan. This wasn’t her first time being on this side of the table, but the last time she had been, she’d been innocent of the crime she was accused of. Now there were probably a number of things she could be charged with that would be true.

The officer came in and sat down across from her. His eyes bored into her own. “I’m Imperial Intelligence Officer Darg. What is your name?”

“Ashla.”

“And your species?” He sneered a little as he said it and she knew that many Imperial officers considered non-humans inferior.

“Togruta.”

“And what’s your business of B’trilla?”

“I’m a mechanic. I heard it was harvest season here. I figured I could trade my skills in exchange some of the crops that are harvested.”

“What are you going to do with the crops?” he said, eyes narrowing.

“Eat some of it. Sell the rest.” She opened her eyes wide and raised the pitch of her voice. “Why? Am I in some sort of trouble?”

“Not yet,” he replied nonchalantly, pretending not to notice her apparent fear. “Do you have a contact on the planet who has agreed to hire you?”

“No,” she said uncertainly. “But things always need to be fixed. Especially around a harvest when the machines will be working overtime to prevent the food from spoiling. I’ll find something,” she declared with a smile.

“I see,” the officer replied, expression not changing. “Well,” he looked down at his datapad, “Ashla, I don’t have any more questions for you right now. But if I do, I’ll be able to find you. The Empire can find anyone,” he finished ominously.

“I’m sure that’s true,” she lied cheerfully. “Thanks for your time!”

After asking around outside the spaceport, Ahsoka was pointed in the direction of the local cantina/boarding house called The Crophouse. According to a couple, B’trillans who she asked, the proprietor, Myri was the person to speak to if you were looking for work. As Ahsoka approached, she found that it was an older building, but that it looked well cared for. She pressed the button to enter and the door whooshed open to reveal the dark room beyond. It was getting toward evening on the planet and Ahsoka wasn’t surprised to see a number of patrons around the cantina. Most were local B’trillans, but there were a couple humans with military haircuts who were probably off-duty Imperials.

She walked up to the bar and asked about the special. The bartender, a matronly female B’trillan, slowly looked her over before answering. “Our special’s a Paoghum liquor made from our Paoghum grown just outside town in a jogan fruit juice.”

“Sounds good, I’ll take one.” The bartender poured what Ahsoka was pretty sure was a generous helping of the liquor before filling the rest of the glass with juice and handing it to her. She took a sip, winced a little at the strength of the drink, and saw the bartender smile slyly at her reaction. “Good stuff,” she hissed through the taste. “I’m looking for the owner of this place, Myri. Imperials have been no help so far at all, but a few locals said she was the person to talk to. Is she around?” She hoped her subtle dig would have the effect she desired. People like bartenders, who so often listened to the sorrows of those around them, were often most receptive to dissent against the authorities who caused or created those sorrows.

“I’d say so,” the bartender replied, her smile widening. “She’s standing right in front of you. Now, what can I do you for?” Now that Ahsoka had passed whatever test, Myri seemed much friendlier.

“I’m looking for a job as a mechanic and I heard you were the person to talk to. Do you have a shop in addition to owning this place?”

Myri laughed. “No, but I’m not the one that would be hiring you. I just happen to know everyone in town who is hiring. So how good of a mechanic are you? What do you have experience with?”

“Ships, speeder bikes, agricultural equipment. I can probably figure out how to fix whatever needs fixing. The latter is what I figured I could really help with. This is the harvest season here, right?”

Myri cocked an eyebrow. “It is. And if you’re half as good as you seem to think you are, Mawa could probably use you."


	5. Hushed Words

A few days later, Ahsoka had settled into her new routine. Myri had offered for her to stay at The Crophouse for a nominal fee and she would walk to work shortly after dawn. Mawa’s shop was on the outskirts of the city, but she didn’t mind the walk because it allowed her to see part of the city. She was easily identifiable as probably the only Togruta on the planet and being friendly, those who were consistently out early were waving to her as she passed them by the third day. She smiled and cheerfully welcomed the greetings, then greeted Mawa warmly when she arrived at his shop.

Mawa a B’trillan of middle age, as far as Ahsoka could tell, and he towered over her at a height of over 6 feet. He was well muscled without being bulky and looked like he’d worked with his hands for all his life. He was cordial, but not friendly. He appreciated her work and after seeing her work the first day had offer to keep her on for the entire harvest season, but he didn’t praise her work beyond that and remained stoic in all circumstances, even the one time that she saw a customer yell at him. One thing that she appreciated was that he didn’t seem to have any love for the Empire. Ahsoka had gotten good at making negative comments about the Empire without resorting to outright sedition. Mawa tended to give small smiles when she made these kinds of comments, though he was hard to read so she wasn’t sure whether he was just humoring her.

On her fourth day, Ahsoka was using a hydrospanner to diagnose what was wrong with one of the binary load lifters used to drag sleds of crops out in the fields. The chime of the shop’s door sounded to indicate that customers had entered and Mawa went to check on them. She continued with her task, identifying the wiring issue that was the likely cause of the malfunction, and was about to open up the droid to replace the wiring when she got a feeling that something was going on out front. She couldn’t say whether she’d felt something in the force or whether it had been the unusual quiet from the front of the store when Mawa’s usual booming voice would have been audible from anywhere in the shop. But she put down the hydrospanner and crept closer to the door, staying out of sight in case her presence wasn’t welcome in whatever was going on.

She heard hushed voices, one she identified as Mawa and two others that she didn’t recognize. They both sounded male, but one sounded higher pitched and more weaselly while the other sounded slower and deeper.

“Alright, so ten days to get everything together,” Mawa was saying. “Do you think you two can manage that?”

“Well,” the weaselly one said, “We should be able to find everything we need, but Chuli and I may have some trouble coming up with the credits to buy all of it. We could probably find…” he paused and Ahsoka could almost hear a sly smile in his voice, “…other methods of obtaining things though.”

“No,” Mawa replied quickly. “We don’t want to take any chances that we don’t have to before the job or leave a trail that could lead back to us afterward. The Togruta that’s been working here the last few days has brought in some extra money, so I can afford to cover what we’re going to need.” 

Ahsoka heard the money change hands and weaselly voice scoff. “You don’t trust me with the money?”

Mawa replied in his usual measured tone. “Let’s just say I trust Chuli more to spend it only on what I want him to. We can’t afford to lose this money gambling on lizard races, Womwa.”

“My guy said that was a sure thing, last time! It’s not my fault that the stupid lizard got sick the day of the race.”

“Regardless,” Mawa began raising his voice a little a little from the whisper he’d been speaking in previously, “Make the purchases we need over the next couple days and spread them out over different vendors. I want at least a few days between buying the supplies and pulling the job and I don’t want any one vendor to be able to identify us as the culprits based on what we bought.”

“I know some guys we can trust, boss,” Womwa reassured him. “We don’t have to worry about them ratting us out to the Empire.”

“The Empire can lean pretty hard on folks. I don’t want to put anyone in a position where they have to choose between ratting us out and having the Empire affect their livelihood.”

“If this works,” Chuli spoke for the first time since she’d been listening, “The Empire may come down on them whether they sold anything or not.”

“True,” Mawa agreed. “We’ll just have to make sure this hurts them worse than they hurt us.

Chuli and Womwa left and Ahsoka quietly crept back to her work, opening up the load lifter’s casing to take a closer look at the wiring. Mawa came back and set to work on the project he’d been working on before. “You hear any of that?” Ahsoka shrugged and shook her head in a non-committal gesture. “We’re going to be getting another half dozen droids from the harvesting fields. The harvest is good this year, but they’re working the droids too hard to try to finish it all before it goes bad and a number of the droids aren’t holding up under the strain.”

“I did hear a little bit of the conversation,” she probed carefully.

Mawa stopped what he was working on and looked up at her, trying to read her. Ahsoka could sense that he wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not. Rather than being offended, she was encouraged by that. A leader whose trust was difficult to gain would be a good fit for an organization that needed to stay secret in order to survive the strength and might of the Empire. She needed to show him she could be trusted.

“What I heard wasn’t about harvesting droids. It was about a job that you were planning. Something to do with the Empire.”

He looked at her sharply. “You have better ears than I thought.”

“I may have been listening for something like this.”

“You were spying on us?”

“More, looking for something. I think it may be why Myri pointed me to you in the first place. I want to help you.”

Mawa smiled the first fully genuine smile she’d seen on his face. “Seems like she didn’t overestimate you. And you’ve passed the test.”


	6. The Infiltration

That evening after she’d had dinner and gone to her room at The Crophouse, Ahsoka returned to the shop where Mawa had told her she would get a briefing on the mission. A couple times on the trip back to The Crophouse, she’d sensed someone following her, but she hadn’t sensed any malicious intent and now she didn’t sense anyone. When she arrived, she saw that she wasn’t the only one there to find out more about the mission. She slipped silently in the back door of the shop and found Mawa, Chuli, and Womwa huddled with another male and a female B’trillan.

She walked over slowly and Mawa greeted her. “Ashla, you already saw Chuli and Womwa in the shop earlier,” he said pointing to each of them. “This is Rana and Neshik,” he continued pointing to the female and male respectively. 

Ahsoka nodded to each of them in turn. “Looks like the gang’s all here. I didn’t realize the whole crew was going to be here to give me the run down.”

“Almost all here,” Mawa corrected her. “Lys is always a little late. Which isn’t a great quality in a driver. Fortunately she makes up for it by being really good at losing a tail. Speak of the devil.”

A tall, slight female B’trillan slipped in the door. “Sorry I’m late everyone, I…,” her voiced trailed off as she saw Ahsoka.

Mawa seemed not to notice. “No problem Lys, we were just getting everyone acquainted. Lys, this is Ashla. She’s the latest member of our little team.”

“I didn’t realize we were still taking applications,” Lys replied looking at Ahsoka coldly.

“The force works in mysterious ways,” Mawa said calmly. “Sometimes it gives us exactly the tool we need for the work we have to do.”

Lys scoffed, but Ahsoka thought to herself that he was probably more right than he knew. Then again Mawa had surprised her a couple times already. He’d kept from her until today that he was the leader of this little cell and he’d managed to get them all together without her suspecting anything. For someone with her extra abilities, neither were easy tasks.

Mawa spoke again, breaking into her thoughts. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s go over the plan for tonight one last time.”

“Wait, tonight?” Ahsoka asked, surprised. “I thought we were just going over the plan tonight.” She saw Lys smile wickedly, though the others just nodded.

“I may have misled you about the exact date of our little caper” Mawa explained. “I didn’t want to take any chances in case you were planning to rat us out to the Empire.”

The pieces fell together in Ahsoka’s head. “So you needed an extra set of hands enough to bring me in last minute, but you weren’t sure you could trust me so you kept some of the details to yourself. That was quite a risk. I could have just turned you in anyway. The Empire wouldn’t have cared that I had the wrong day. Or proof, for that matter. They would have thrown you in a hole just in case. If you were lucky.”

“Mawa’s been putting together plans for us for a while,” Lys said, turning defensive. “What do you know about the Empire, new girl?”

Ahsoka was tired of her attitude. She walked right up to Lys and starred her right in the eye. “Enough.”

Chuli laughed appreciatively and Womwa whistled. Rana spoke up, “She told you!”

Mawa cleared his throat. “That’s enough. We need to get this going if you’re going to be back here before 3rd watch.”

He laid out the plan. In addition to Lys the driver, Rana was there as a tech expert/hacker, Neshik would be a sniper, and Chuli and Womwa were there to deal with any resistance that they encountered. He explained that he’d heard about some extra droid and countermeasures the Imperials had recently implemented which is why he’d recruited Ashla to help out Rana.

“What about you?” Ahsoka asked.

Mawa pressed a button on his belt and a wall panel slid aside showing a wall of twelve monitors, some of which showed what looked like live feeds and some of which were dark. “I’ll be here as your eyes and ears.” I have some exterior cameras that Chuli and Womwa placed a couple days ago and I’ll be able to see through Neshik’s scope, but you’ll have to hack the cameras at the Imperial base and plant a few of your own to give me a full picture. Any other questions?”

Ahsoka looked around and was surprised to see them all shaking their heads. “Umm. What’s the job? Why are we breaking into the Imperial base?”

“Don’t worry about it, new girl,” Neshik responded, picking up a case that Ahsoka hadn’t notice until just then and heading to the door.

“I’ll feed you information as you need it,” Mawa reassured her.

“And if the Imperials jam your signal and we’re left in the dark?” She thought it was a reasonable question, but the others just shook their heads.

“Then we go to plan B and you follow Womwa’s direction.” Mawa looked at the others. “You know the drill. Three teams and don’t lose the new girl. And one more thing.” He grabbed a cloak from a hook on the wall and threw it to Ahsoka. “The Imperials can’t tell the difference between us, but you’ll be recognizable as the only Togruta on B’trilla.” 

They left the shop and Lys and then Neshik left the group, taking different paths into the night. Womwa, Chuli, Rana, and Ahsoka headed by a circuitous route toward the Imperial base. As they reached the southeast corner, they saw a side entrance with a Stormtrooper guard outside it and no one else in sight. Through their coms they heard Mawa say, “That’s your entrance. Nesh?”

A hole appeared in the trooper’s armor and he dropped to the ground. “Let’s go!” Womwa whispered and he and Chuli ran forward.

Ahsoka and Rana followed them forward and Rana popped the front off of the panel next to the door. She plugged her datapad into a connection behind the panel, pressed a few buttons and the door popped open. Chuli picked up the stormtrooper with one arm and carried him inside the door while the others followed.

Rana plugged into the room’s computer while Chuli threw the stormtrooper’s body in the corner and stripped off the armor. Inside, Ahsoka saw what she’d feared she would see. A clone, looking exactly the same as hundreds of others that she’d fought alongside. She must have looked nauseous because Rana looked over at her with a sympathetic look and waved her over.

“First dead body, huh?”

“Uh. Something like that.” She smiled weakly.

“You just have to take your mind off it. Look, we chose this entrance because it’s not very well guarded and because it has a computer that can access the base’s cameras.” She typed a few more keys and dozens of views from around the base came up. “And now,” she plugged in a transmitter to the computer, “Mawa has access to everything. You receiving Mawa?”

“I have you,” he responded in their ears. “Looks like they’re pretty lightly staffed tonight, as we’d thought. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

He gave them directions down one passageway, then another. They took turn after turn, avoiding sentries on their rounds and restless officers stretching their legs. As they went, they planted cameras in nooks and crannies where they wouldn’t raise suspicion, but would give additional views along their route. Eventually, without incident they reached a door with the word ARMORY in block letters across it.

“So far so good,” Rana said as she plugged in to the panel. After a few seconds, the door slid halfway open, then stopped. “Whoops! No big deal, I just pressed the wrong key, I’ve got it.”

“Are you sure?” Mawa asked through their earpieces.

Rana paused for just a half second too long before answering. “Yes. I don’t see any alarms tripped in the system. We’re all good.” The door slid the rest of the way open. Ahsoka reached out with her senses. She didn’t sense any deception in Rana, but she did sense a little seed of uncertainty which confirmed her suspicions.

“Alright,” came Mawa’s voice. “In and out quick like. Get everything you can carry and most armories like this one will have one or two hovercarts in them in case larger munitions need to be moved. You know what we’re looking for. Go!”

Womwa, Ahsoka, and Chuli all entered the armory, followed by Rana bringing up the rear. Ahsoka took it all in. It was bigger than she’d expected. Of course she’d seen bigger as part of the Grand Army of the Republic, but this was a sizable armory for an outpost of this size. There were crates of small arms, dozens of rocket launchers and boxes of explosives. Enough to wage a small war, which is probably what Mawa was planning. The Empire wouldn’t miss the weaponry, they could just get another shipment, but this could breathe life into a coordinated rebellion on B’trilla.

They started packing as much as they could onto the three hovercarts in one corner of the room. Chuli picked up crates of blaster rifles, one in each arm, loading up the nearest cart. The others helped, but the larger boxes took two of them to lift. After only a few minutes, the hovercarts were almost loaded up with most of what they could take with them and Womwa was unloading a box of mines around the room and setting their timers.

“You’re going to blow up the base?” Ahsoka asked.  
“Not the whole base,” he hissed. “Just a big enough explosion for them to think we may have just come in to blow everything up. Or if we’re really lucky that it was just a munitions malfunction that vaporized much of the weaponry.”

Mawa’s voice came through their coms again. “Okay, times up. If we want to get you out before 3rd watch starts and they notice the stormtrooper guard is missing, you’re going to have to move. Womwa waved for Ahsoka to push one of the hovercarts and Chuli and Rana got behind the other two as Womwa moved toward the doorway. Before he could reach it, the door hissed shut.


	7. Escape

“What just happened?” Ahsoka asked the others.

Rana rushed toward the door. “Sorry, sorry. The door has a limited time that it is coded to stay open for at a time.” She took out her datapad and plugged it into the panel beside the door. “Overriding the door permanently would have tripped the alarm, but I lost track of time while we were loading up everything. I should be able to just…”

The door hissed back open. And an alarm started blaring.

“What’s going on?” Mawa shouted through the coms.

Rana frantically typed away on her datapad. “The door isn’t supposed to be open this frequently unless there’s an emergency in the base. So the system thinks there must be an emergency if personnel are accessing the armory this much. Hold on, I should be able to trick the system and get it to turn off.”

“No time,” Mawa replied urgently. “Take what you can and get out fast. The Imperials aren’t sure what’s going on yet and I should be able to spoof a few of the cameras to hide your presence for a couple minutes, but they’re going to be coming your way. And I don’t know how long it will be before they discover that I’m in their system and lock me out.

Womwa jumped through the doorway and took off down the hall toward the first intersection. Rana started to go toward her hovercart, but Mawa stopped her. “Rana, the Imperials are going to start locking down doors when they realize you’re trying to escape the base. You’re going to need to go ahead with Womwa to open a path. Chuli, can you take your cart and Rana’s?

Chuli flexed, grunted, and swung his cart around so he was able to place one arm on the handle for each cart so he could steer both of them. “Got it.” He steered both carts out the door and in the direction Womwa had gone.

Ahsoka objected, even as she pushed her own cart after him. “We should just leave the weapons here! This is an Imperial base and they know we’re here; it’s going to be hard enough just to get us all out. If we leave it here, it all gets destroyed, which is still a blow to the Empire.”

“If we miss this chance, we won’t get another one,” Mawa countered. “They’ll triple security after tonight now that they know that we’re a threat. We won’t be able to exploit the same vulnerabilities again and that could set us back months or even years.”

Ahsoka had reached the first intersection at this point and she rounded it to see Womwa and Rana stopped at a door at the end of the next corridor with Rana’s datapad plugged into it.

“Chuli, let Ashla go ahead of you,” Mawa ordered. “I want you in the back in case they ambush you from behind.”

This was too much, too fast, Ahsoka thought to herself. They were too deep into the base and there was too much opportunity for the Imperials to intercept them before they could escape. Plus the Imperials had numbers on their side. In fifteen minutes, at least a hundred stormtroopers and officers could be in these hallways.

“Rana, set the door to close in 60 seconds,” Mawa told her as it opened. “The armory will go up in two minutes and you should be as far from it as you can be when it does. Hopefully it will attract enough attention to distract them from your escape. I should be able to steer you around the security doors in the next few corridors.”

Womwa sprinted ahead, following Mawa’s directions and Rana and Ahsoka followed with Chuli bringing up the rear pushing one cart and pulling the other. Ahsoka looked back and saw he was having trouble steering both carts, but had a look of determination on his face. They had turned their fourth corner and were about halfway out when the whole building shook.

“Boom go the detonators,” Chuli said in his deep voice, now breathing pretty heavily.

The door at the end of the corridor was closed, but the corridor had a junction right before the door off to the left. “You’re going to need to get through that door, then it’s a straight shot out of the base,” Mawa told them. “Detouring around it will take too long and there’s a security team heading your way. I’m not sure if they saw you on the cameras or if they’re just heading toward the explosion, but you’re out of time. Womwa, cover Rana while she gets through the door. Ashla, be ready to support if necessary.”

Ahsoka noticed that Womwa suddenly had two blaster pistols, one in each hand. He didn’t look like he had much experience with them, but she recognized the model and knew they were powerful enough to pack a punch. He set up peering around the corner while Rana made herself as small as possible on the opposite wall, hacking the door. Ahsoka heard sounds in the next corridor and peaked around the corner to see four stormtroopers headed toward them. Womwa opened fire in hopes of distracting them from Rana, but at this range, his shots weren’t accurate or effective. Fortunately, the stormtroopers had the same problem, so their return fire didn’t do much more than make them all nervous.

“Almost got it,” Rana said nervously, “but I could do with some quiet. This isn’t easy, you know.”

“I’m trying, but for some reason the stormtroopers aren’t obliging my kind requests for their patience,” said Womwa testily. “Just get the door open.”

Rana pressed a final button and looked at the door expectantly. Instead of opening, the door buzzed loudly and an electrical current shot out of the door panel. Rana’s body shook and dropped to the ground. Ahsoka rushed forward to her and Womwa stepped into the open, presenting a more tempting target for the stormtroopers while moving around to make their shots more difficult. Ahsoka felt for a pulse, but could find one. Unsure whether she understood B’trillan physiology well enough, she reached out with the force and found that all to familiar feeling that she’d just experienced a few days ago at the space station bar. Nothing.

“She’s dead,” Ahsoka said, feeling numb inside. Another death in this endless fight.

Mawa was silent for a moment. Then, “Can you get the door open?” Ahsoka looked at the datapad. She’d had the right idea, but had used the wrong sequence to figure out the door code and the heightened security must have resulted in a shock. It may have just been enough to knock out a human, but the countermeasure wasn’t built for B’trillan physiology.

“Yeah, just give me a minute.” She reached out for the datapad, but felt the hair on her arm raise. The door panel and the attached data pad still had a strong electrical charge.

“We don’t have a minute!” Womwa called out. Ahsoka glanced toward him to see that he had somehow shot one of the stormtroopers, but the other three were advancing and there were more coming behind them. They were maybe fifty feet away now and their shots could do some damage if they hit something. Ahsoka reached out with the force and pressed a few buttons on the datapad, changing the sequence for the hack. The door whooshed open.

Womwa looked back and smiled at her for the first time since they’d met. He tossed her one of the blaster pistols and said, “Now get the carts through. You should be clear to get out of the base and Lys will be waiting for you. I’ll take care of these guys and catch up with you.” He turned, leaped at the opposite wall, somersaulted off of it at the ceiling, then was back on the floor dodging toward the stormtroopers. The troopers opened fire at him in earnest, but he was too fast for them and they couldn’t bring their blasters around in time. At Mawa’s request, she waited while Chuli passed her with his two carts (”so he can deal with any other resistance”) and watched as Womwa whirled among the three troopers, delivering punches, chops, kicks, and even a headbutt while they tried to hit him with their bulky armor. The armor protected them from most of his attacks, but one of them went down at a chopping motion to the joint between his helmet and his breastplate. Another fell as Womwa kicked out his knees and he shoved the third toward one of his fallen comrades and he tripped and fell over him. Ahsoka grabbed her cart as he ran toward her, victorious, beaming. Just as she got to the doorway, something flash behind him and both his step and his smile faltered. He flew the last few feet toward her, his momentum taking him to her where she caught him. He smelled of burnt flesh and she saw a large blaster wound on his back.

She dragged him through the doorway as the second wave of stormtroopers moved toward them from the other end of the corridor. “At least I bought you time for your escape,” Womwa said, voice raspy.

“Our escape,” she corrected him and he smiled weakly at her. “Womwa’s down, but I’ve got him.” She picked up his now frail frame and threw him across the top of the cart. She pushed the cart, sprinting toward Chuli who was already halfway to the exit with his two carts.

“The exterior door shouldn’t have any security on it,” Mawa said in her ear. “It’s meant to keep people out, not to keep people in, so you should be able to get through it, no problem.”

Chuli reached the door and palmed it open just as Ahsoka caught up with him. As Chuli maneuvered his carts through, a hovertruck sped up and halted in front of them, the back already open. “Come on, let’s go!” Lys called to them. “Pretty sure they saw me approaching the base.”

Sure enough blaster shots started to ring out as Chuli raised the first hovercart to the level of the truck. The turret nearest them on top of the base started to turn toward them, then stopped.

“Got the big gun,” Neshik said in their ears. “But you’ve got a full squad of troopers approaching your position from half a click to the west.” Ahsoka looked up and saw the lead trooper fall with a hole through his otherwise pristine helmet. But the remaining nine kept coming.

“You’ve got at least one other squad on your tail from inside the facility,” Mawa told them. And my Imperial frequency scanner is telling me patrols around the city are headed for your position. You’re going to need a distraction.”

Chuli was maneuvering the second cart onto the truck and Ahsoka started unloading hers. First, she placed Womwa on the ground, then kicked a couple of the larger crates of blaster rifles off of the cart. That left two large crates of explosives.

Two more of the stormtroopers approaching from the west took shots, but only one fell as they were now running in a less direct path to avoid the sniper shots. They opened fire on the truck and most of the shots went wide as they were still a ways away, but a couple shots hit Chuli as he shielded the truck with his own body. He grunted at each of the impacts, but picked up Womwa in one arm and one of the crates Ahsoka had kicked off her cart in the other as she swung her cart around toward the door they’d exited. One more trooper fell to Neshik’s careful shots as she gave the cart a final push and retreated toward the truck, grabbing the last box of blaster rifles and dragging it behind her. The stormtroopers kept firing and she heard a couple more grunts behind her as she through the crate into the back and told Lys to drive. The truck lurched forward and Ahsoka brought her blaster pistol up and took three quick shots at the cart which was now almost at the door to the base. There was a small burst of flame as one of her shots hit a thermal detonator, then as they turned a corner, a much larger explosion lit up the night.


	8. Epilogue

A few days later, she awoke in her bed in The Crophouse ready to do something. She’d been cooped up in her room for the last few days while Mawa, Myri, and their contacts tried to assess whether the Empire suspected who had carried out the attack. She didn’t like being stuck inside with nothing to do and she wished she could at least go to the shop to fix equipment, but the shop had been shut down and emptied out before the Empire could trace Mawa’s signal back to it. She wasn’t sure where Mawa or the other members of the crew were hiding out, but she figured it was probably better that they didn’t know each other’s locations in case one of them was caught.

A thud outside her door let her know that breakfast had arrived. Myri was having someone bring her meals twice a day so that she wouldn’t even have to go downstairs for food. She opened the door to find that breakfast this morning had an addition, a note. It read:

_Meet at warehouse H23 in the north district in 2 hours._   
_-M_

She ate breakfast, showered in the refresher, donned her cloak, and grabbed the meager belongings that she’d brought with her off the ship. Depending on what she learned in this meeting, she may not be returning here. She walked uptown toward the warehouse disrtict enveloped in her cloak. She’d been nervous initially that the cloak would draw attention to her, but the normally cloudy skies were raining lightly. Even though it wasn’t much rain, the vast majority of the beings she passed were wearing cloaks that covered their entire bodies. The only exceptions were a few human Imperial officers who didn’t seem to want to cover up their uniforms, but every B’trillan she passed was covered head to toe.

She reached the warehouse about twenty minutes before she was supposed to meet and stationed herself in the shadow of the warehouse next door where she could see both the front and side entrances to Warehouse H23 clearly. As she waited and watched a cloaked figure went around the side and entered the warehouse.

Her com from the other night buzzed and she hear Mawa’s familiar voice. “Are you going to stay out in the rain all day or are you going to join me?” She checked the time and, realizing it was still five minutes before their appointed meeting time, felt abashed.

“I must be losing my touch if I was that easy to spot,” she replied, crossing between the warehouses toward the side entrance she’d seen him enter through.  
“Nah, I’ve had electronic surveillance both on you and the area around the warehouse since I sent you the note.”

She opened the door and was surprised to find only Lys there in front of a holoimage of Mawa. “Sorry that I couldn’t be here in person, ladies. The Empire traced my signal when I was hacked into their network as we thought, so they’re looking for me. I have plenty of friends in the community willing to hide me from them, but it’s not safe for me to be in public for a few days and I didn’t want to put you in danger by making you come to me.”

“What about the others?” Ahsoka asked. “Chuli and Womwa and Nesh?”

“Womwa didn’t make it. With that shot in the back and the bruises he got from fighting armored troopers, his injuries were too bad. By the time we got him back to a safehouse where we could assess him, he was gone. Chuli’s also injured, but should pull through. He took several blaster bolts, but none of them were serious enough to be life threatening, so he should recover. Neshik is another story. We haven’t heard from him since shortly after your escape in the truck. We think the stormtroopers were able to pinpoint where his shots came from and one of the patrols that had been heading for you diverted and captured him. It was why you only had to lose two patrols in your escape, which was still no easy task. Good job with that, Lys.”

She nodded, then glared at Ahsoka. “Too bad we lost half the team.” Ahsoka could understand how she felt. She’d lost so many beings that she’d fought with, many of which felt like family just like Rana and Womwa must have felt to Lys.

“It wasn’t Ashla’s fault, Lys,” Mawa chided her. “If it wasn’t for her, we probably wouldn’t have gotten out with anything and the whole team, including you, might have been captured or worse. They made the ultimate sacrifice, but they died fighting against the Empire. And there will probably be a lot more who do before this is over.”

Ahsoka stepped toward the holo. “I think I can help with that.” Mawa raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt her so she continued. “You already know that I didn’t come here to fix agricultural equipment. I’m here because I heard from a spy in the Imperial military that there was a rebel element on B’trilla.”

“How did you know-” Lys started angrily, but Mawa interrupted.

“Never mind the how.” He turned back to Ahsoka. “Continue.”

“I’m here as part of an organization called Fulcrum that wants to recruit, train, and share resources between groups whose goal is to overthrow the Empire.”

“The Empire is gigantic,” Lys argued. “It’ll never be overthrown. We just want them off our planet.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “But even if you did drive them off the planet by force, they’d just be back with more men and more ships. You can’t defeat an enemy like the Empire by only focusing on one planet. You have to look at whole systems, whole sectors. The whole galaxy.”

Mawa looked skeptical. “And you’re saying you have a whole galaxy-wide organization, but you want to work with us?”

Ahsoka shook her head again, feeling this wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. She hadn’t had many chances to practice her pitch and it was a hard pitch to make when you weren’t sure what you could offer. “We’re not that big yet. We’ve got some allies and strategic assets in place, but we’re still expanding our operation and forming new alliances. We could help you with picking targets and recruiting new members.”

Mawa smiled. “We won’t need any help with recruitment for now, you saw to that. The Empire tried to keep our little raid a secret which just made the rumors spread even faster. I’m pretty sure half of B’trilla has heard about the daring raid that blew up the Empire’s entire arsenal. We’ve been contacted by people who we’d been trying to recruit for months because they finally believe that we could be successful.” He looked her in the eye. “I meant what I said to Lys. We couldn’t have done all of that without you. I won’t sell out my people for the ‘greater good,’ but we’ll do what we can to help the larger fight succeed.”

Ahsoka tried to keep her cool, but inside she felt elated. Recruiting groups to join her against the Empire was incredibly difficult and she’d failed so often that she’d forgotten what success felt like. A weight had lifted off her chest and she smiled. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

“I can’t convince you to stay on with us for a while, can I? We could use your expertise on the next few jobs we have planned.”

“Unfortunately, no. I have to get back out there. It’s a big galaxy and there are a lot of people who oppose the Empire that I still need to find.”

Mawa nodded. “As I thought. Is there anything that Fulcrum needs from us?”

Ahsoka hesitated. It seemed too soon to ask for a favor, but he had offered. “Well, I may not have come have come here to fix agricultural equipment. But I was hoping to procure some of your crop. Fighting the empire can make a lot of refugees and our resources are stretched thin trying to care for them and expand our efforts.”

“It’s already on your ship,” he said to her surprise. We’ll have a surplus and anything beyond what it takes to feed our world, the Empire will tax heavily. So we smuggled some onto your ship and we’ve been hiding more that we can have on a larger cargo ship next week bound for whatever coordinates you give us.”

She looked at him quizzically. “There’s a lot more to your organization than what you let me see, isn’t there?”

“We’re a densely populated world. It’s conceivable that there could be a number of us who aren’t fans of the Empire.” He winked at her. “We weren’t really fans of the Separatists who came before them either.”

Separatists? That meant their organization had been around for at least a few years, since the height of the Clone Wars, and was probably considerably larger than she’d estimated. This had been a very worthwhile trip, indeed.


End file.
